On 23 July 2021 China's State Council issued new rules banning for-profit companies from tutoring in core curriculum subjects and banned foreign investment in the sector. No new licences were to be issued and all existing operators were instructed to register as non-profits. Overnight the share prices of US-listed Chinese commercial education providers fell 60 per cent. Stocks such as New Oriental Education and TAL Education traded more than 90 per cent below their record highs of March 2021. Bloomberg reported that investment analysts were scurrying to read the collected writings of Xi Jinping,1 the three volumes of his book The Governance of China. After all, in 2018 Xi had already written: “The conscientious [education] industry cannot turn into a profit-seeking industry. The off-campus training institutions must be regulated by the law so that they can return to the normal track of educating people.” China's regulatory environment was perhaps not so opaque and uncertain after all.

Were all the clues hiding in plain sight? Could the crackdown in the educational sector have been foreseen? In part, yes – although the world is not that simple. Official speeches, books and other writings, many delivered by Xi Jinping or bearing his name, provide a wealth of information on both the rationale and specifics of Chinese policy direction. These materials are frequently designed expressly to provide guidance to Party officials at all levels across China about the priorities and principles that should guide actions and implementation at the local level. In a sense, The Governance of China provides the foundation for the governance of business in China, for the role that business is expected to play and the way that it is expected to operate.

Party publications are important too. One particularly significant journal is Qiushi (求是: Seeking Truth), the CPC's principal official journal. Qiushi states that it “serves as an important ideological and theoretical medium for guiding the work of the entire Party and the country as a whole”.2 Many foreign business leaders and analysts underestimate the seriousness and intent behind such statements. Indeed, the often dry, even turgid, style can be off-putting.